Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif attends a farewell ceremony for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Photo: Reuters
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Saturday that Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei will be remembered for generations for his wisdom, leadership and profound influence on Iran and the wider region.
“The late supreme leader’s wisdom, leadership and profound influence on Iran and the wider region will be remembered for generations,” Prime Minister Shehbaz said in a post on X.
Khamenei was killed at the age of 86 on February 28 during a joint US-Israeli airstrike in Tehran against his residence. His six-day funeral and memorial processions attracted several world leaders to pay tribute to the slain supreme leader.
Khamenei’s funeral processions began today in Tehran and will conclude on July 9 with his burial in his hometown of Mashhad, with additional ceremonies planned in Qom and Iraq between these dates.
The Prime Minister, in his statement, said he paid his respects and conveyed deepest condolences on behalf of the government and people of Pakistan to the government and brotherly people of Iran at the funeral ceremony.
While reaffirming Islamabad’s solidarity with the Iranian people, Prime Minister Shehbaz said: “As a brotherly neighbor, Pakistan stands with Iran in this time of pain.”
“To demonstrate our solidarity with the Iranian people, I was accompanied by a high-level delegation including DPM Ishaq Dar, CDF and COAS Field Marshal Asim Munir, and senior parliamentarians including Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq,” he added.
Read: Iranians flock to Khamenei’s week-long funeral rites
A day earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz and CDF Munir attended the funeral ceremony of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Khamenei.
During a one-day visit to Iran, the Prime Minister expressed full solidarity with the Supreme Leader, His Eminence Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and the brotherly people of Iran in this time of national grief and prayed to Allah Almighty for the forgiveness of the deceased leader.
Critical moment for the Islamic Republic
Khamenei’s coffin was unveiled Thursday night to a crowd of sobbing, swaying and head-banging supporters to a sung lament as flowers were thrown from the coffin into the crowd. On Friday, the coffin, and those of his family members killed with it, were placed in the grand prayer hall built in honor of his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The funeral came at a critical time for Iran, where clerical rulers backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are riding high after surviving what they saw as an existential war against their biggest and most powerful enemies.
But nearly five decades after the 1979 revolution, and despite all the official proclamations of national unity in the run-up to Khamenei’s funeral, the Islamic Republic has rarely been so internally fractured.
The streets of Tehran were tightly controlled, with military and police vehicles lining the main roads and police and members of the Basij volunteer paramilitary force, dressed in black shirts, patrolling on motorcycles. Iran warned the United States and Israel against any attack during the funeral.
